Asia's developing economies will experience lower levels of growth in 2008 and 2009 than previously forecast, after governments introduced policies to combat inflation, says the Asian Development Bank.
The ADB said yesterday it had upgraded its forecast for inflation among its 44 developing member countries, predicting that price rises would average 7.8 per cent this year and 6 per cent in 2009. In April it forecast 5.1 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.
“Although central banks have begun to tighten monetary policy some may have let the inflation genie out of the bottle by doing too little, too late, since interest rates in most countries are still lower than inflation,” said Ifzal Ali, ADB's chief economist.